Excited to be starting over…
Written by Luke Patience | 20 February 2014
The path to the Olympics is rarely straightforward, so new challenges and opportunities to get the best out of yourself are always part of the game.
I’m only looking forward to some great things to come out of my new 470 partnership with Elliot Willis.
While it was disappointing when Joe told me that he was going to stop sailing, it was totally the right decision for him and his family, for all the right reasons. You always learn a lot from sailing with someone new – you learn about yourself more, and learn things from them. Me and Joe had a fantastic short partnership, and the competitive environment and how we felt about that environment put us in a place where to call it a day was the right, and only, decision that Joe could make.
Elliot is a fantastic sailor – a double World Champion, serial medallist and one of the world’s best 470 sailors. It’s a crying shame he’s never yet had the chance to compete at the Olympic Games due to the one spot per nation rule.
We have a fantastic opportunity to shape a new campaign together towards gold in Rio, bringing together our respective skills. Elliot has always been an exceptional crew in the lighter wind range that we would potentially expect to see in Rio, but also it’s about being competitive in as broad a range of conditions that we can be. My skills are largely known to be steering the boat fast in the stronger winds so together I think we have the potential to be a great team.
Elliot and I have known each other for many years now and I think that we probably understand each other quite well. In the conversations we have about the sport, we’re often in a very similar place in terms of our thoughts and our beliefs in it. Both of us sit here with a bit of unfinished business individually, and we’ve brought that together to try and climb that mountain and go through some of those beliefs that we have together.
It’s two and a half years to the Games, which is quite an inspiringly short space of time. It’s not like it’s an epically long marathon that we’re embarking on; it’s short, sharp and intense. I don’t think that puts us at a disadvantage – I would take the good out of that and say that we’ll be hugely motivated and intent to not lose time from here.
What will be important in these early days is to lay out the foundation of the campaign, and really the foundation of the process, so that when we start building upon that, let’s say a year down the line, we don’t look back and see that we missed a building block and see that the overall structure is fractured or flawed. Putting that process in correctly at the start will benefit us in the long term. Ultimately from my experience there’s a huge amount of pleasure in the process – there’s a huge amount of confidence and motivation in getting the process right.
Of course you have the end in mind and that’s standing on the highest step of the podium with a gold medal at the Olympic Games, but in my experience it’s what that represents that’s really something to be proud of.
Elliot and I are quite detailed people and obsessed in the perfection – the devil’s in the detail! I imagine that through this time that we’ve got, with that intensity and attention to detail, I hope that that end result will take care of itself. It’s not something we need to worry about. Enjoying these two and a half years to the Games and getting what we feel is right out of that will be incredibly exciting.
Elliot and I do have a shorter campaign, but I’m quite motivated by that. I think back to Stuart and I’s campaign for London and effectively we’re just six months further down the line than now than where Stuart and I were when we started. Hannah [Mills] and Saskia [Clark] had an 18 month campaign to the 2012 Games. Tom King and Mark Turnbull, the Sydney 2000 gold medallists, in the third year out from the Games struggled to even make a gold fleet, but they had confidence in their process and the path that they were on they knew was taking them to a place that they were confident that they could achieve come the day.
In these early stages it won’t be about an expectation of results, it’s about that process and that path. There are many stories to take inspiration from and I guess it would be great if we could end up being one of those stories!
We’re off to Palma next week for our first training camp in the boat together, before our first event at the Princess Sofia World Cup regatta at the beginning of April. I can’t wait to get started!